installing puppy on a Libretto L1/060tncm with pmcia CDdrive

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installing puppy on a Libretto L1/060tncm with pmcia CDdrive

#1 Post by cookie »

Hi,

I am really new to Linux basically only having got into it after all this press with the Ubuntu distro. This is related to a project I have with an old Toshiba Libretto L1/060tncm which I want to give to my parents-in-law as their first internet-able computer. I looked around at a few distros but I have settled on puppy as you seem to have the right ethos to match my parents in law, not computer literate, will use dial-up, everything has to work and be really obvious for them.

My problem is that none of the puppy builds I have tried from 2.15 upwards will install from the Libretto external CD-drive (Panasonic KXL-830AN). The kernel will load fine however in later stages after "floppy drivers loading" I think the computer fails to find drivers for the CD-ROm drive and everything stops.

To get around this I have taken the Libretto apart to get at the hard drive and tried to install puppy on the drive using my work computer (typical dell windows stuff) where I know the puppy Live-CD:s works well. All went well with this process until I tried to get puppy to boot from puppy installed hard drive using grub. Grub boots up the Kernel fine but freezes at the "choose your keyboard layout" screen where everything freezes and the keyboard won:t respond.

So any ideas on how I can get an easy to use Linux distro on my Libretto? I would prefer puppy and prefer the latest version 1.27 as my parents in law would enjoy the dial up internet support which is in that version. I also found out that you have a japanese language version of puppy which is handy as my parents in law are japanese.

Sorry for the long post, any help would be great, I really am loosing my enthusiasm for this Linux experiment.

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some progress

#2 Post by cookie »

Just an update. I have managed to get around the problem of not being able to use my PCcard external CD-Rom drive by using an exernal USB CD drive and using wakepup from floppy to activate it.

Now my next problem is the display. The libretto has a 1280x600 pixel display however none of the modes in Xorg wizard will give me a proper display. The mouse appears during testing and is working fine although it is confined to a small area on screen and the screen backdrop looks like three squished white boxes (maybe the puppy desktop compacted??) to about an inch wide each.

I tried using Xvesa as well but that fails completely.
I might try installing xubuntu today to see if the graphics driver works there.

Any help with puppy would be gratefully appreciated.

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fr_lf78
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#3 Post by fr_lf78 »

Hi

i have a libretto 110CT with windows 98
i tried puplinux...
but i have a stange display
with low definition (kind of green yellow white..) and hardly readable text
it's a pity since puppy seems to be activated
how to provide a correct display
i red hundreds of pages and command lines
linux wont succeed if so complex :roll:
it seems all is said as if linux already installed!
the problem is to install it with a proper display at first run...
thanks for any help
fr_lf78 8)

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Dougal
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#4 Post by Dougal »

The reason the xorgwizard doesn't offer you 1280x600 is probably that it's not listed as one of the "normal" resolutions of the wizard -- completely arbitrary.

Just go into X, then open /etc/X11/xorg.conf and replace the resolution to 1280x600, then restart X.
What's the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's your mind

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fr_lf78
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#5 Post by fr_lf78 »

:)
Hi,
Thanks for the answer, i did not try the hint because i dont how i can change such parameter and so i try not to brick my libretto

however the good news is i finally connected my libretto to an external screen. then i opened the xorgvideo wizard and through the pannel xorgwizard i started an unexpected reboot and at this occasion for the first time i got the pannel giving the choice between xorg and xvesa i chose the xorg and one of the largest display 1028x768 24 or something like that.
Then i waited and suddenly i saw the pup diplay (seagulls...) giving to my libretto 110CT (1998 stufff) kind of new birth

i hope the puplinux98 will be updated someday with the new releases because i particularily like the last but one release...

Thanks anayway! i will inform you how i (hope to) manage puppy on my libretto
8) ...

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Dougal
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#6 Post by Dougal »

fr_lf78 wrote: i did not try the hint because i dont how i can change such parameter and so i try not to brick my libretto
You don't need to be afraid of breaking anything: if it doesn't work, just run "xorgwizard" from the commandline.
What's the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's your mind

JaDy
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#7 Post by JaDy »

I'm the keeper of PupWin98 and PupWinQE at freeVEDA.org.
I intend to release new versions of both with the latest Puppy version.
Felicitations & Facilitations, Rev. John G. Derrickson
Wrote fast. Goofs happen. Tell me.

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#8 Post by cookie »

The reason the xorgwizard doesn't offer you 1280x600 is probably that it's not listed as one of the "normal" resolutions of the wizard -- completely arbitrary.

Just go into X, then open /etc/X11/xorg.conf and replace the resolution to 1280x600, then restart X.
I tried doing this but as I am a beginner I'm not sure if I am doing it right. Anyway I think Xorg wizard does allow you to choose the 1280x600 option but first you have to choose the "Z" options ' in the puppy video wizard when automatic set-up has failed and then it allows you to choose 1280x600x(24 or 16).

I guess the answer may lie in editing the Xorg conf file correctly, and I found a website where someone has edited a similar file for the Libretto
http://www.tsden.org/nemossan/Libretto-L1.html

unfortunately I don't know what I am doing and my random insertion of letters and numbers hasn't worked. Can someone help me get the values I need for the Xorg conf file from this website.

Any help gratefully appreciated.

mcgregor
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#9 Post by mcgregor »

Hi,

0. BACK UP YOUR xorg.conf
1. Open /etc/X11/xorg.conf (or use Xorg wizard)
2. Find Monitor section
3. Edit it:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "TOSHIBA"
ModelName "5088"
HorizSync 31.5 - 82.0
VertRefresh 40.0 - 150.0
Modeline "1280x600b" 60 1280 1328 1512 1712 600 601 603 625
Modeline "1280x600c" 63.61 1280 1280 1384 1688 600 600 604 628 -hsync -vsync
EndSection

4. Find Device section
5. Edit it:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "savage"
VendorName "S3"
BoardName "Savage/IX-MV"
Option "UseBIOS" "on"
BusID "PCI:0:4:0"
EndSection

6. Find Screen section
7. Edit it:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16

SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x600c" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

8. Find DRI section
9. Edit it:
Section "DRI"
Group 0
EndSection

It should work. If something will go wrong, try to replace 1280x600c with 1280x600b in SubSection "Display".

Good luck!

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#10 Post by cookie »

Nope, didn't work unfortunately with c or b. By the way I didn't have a DRI section originally so I made one. But with or without it , I couldn't get X to work.

Could there be something with X on my laptop though. When I finish the test, it suddenly automatically does the test again and the report then reports that the tested display was 800x600. Is there a version of puppy with a significantly different version of X that I could try?

Thanks for the help mcgregor.

mcgregor
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Joined: Sun 06 May 2007, 08:04

#11 Post by mcgregor »

:cry:

It works for me...

Can you post your entire xorg.conf file here?

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fr_lf78
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#12 Post by fr_lf78 »

8) Hi cookie,

you just wrote : "Just an update. I have managed to get around the problem of not being able to use my PCcard external CD-Rom drive by using an exernal USB CD drive and using wakepup from floppy to activate it."

how did you manage that? i have a freecom traveller external pmcia cd reader and up to now i did not manage any bootind with the cd can you explain please?

hope your display problem will be solved... i use 1024x768 and xorg just see the head and head of the puppy :-) but i could not find a right way to display (no kind of displacable screen as in win98...)

bye,
fr

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fr_lf78
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#13 Post by fr_lf78 »

8) Hi JaDy

i saw you intended to update puppwin98 to one of the last version. it would be very nice! keep us informed...

i like the 2.15 version a bit complex but once you understood it's very soft and cool

i will wait or try to activate the pcmcia cd to update...

bye
fr 8) ...

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#14 Post by cookie »

Hi fr,
you just wrote : "Just an update. I have managed to get around the problem of not being able to use my PCcard external CD-Rom drive by using an exernal USB CD drive and using wakepup from floppy to activate it."

how did you manage that? i have a freecom traveller external pmcia cd reader and up to now i did not manage any bootind with the cd can you explain please?
As far as I know the Wakepup boot floppy will activate any external USB CD drives that you plug into the Libretto, so then I could run puppy from the CD. I stopped using the PCCard cd drive that came with the Libretto completely and use an external CD drive thats available in my office.

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#15 Post by cookie »

Can you post your entire xorg.conf file here?
Um, how do I do that exactly?
In the mp I can see the x conf file and edit it but what option do I need to save it to an external media so that I can move it to another computer?
Sorry for being a newbie :-(
Thanks[/img]

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#16 Post by cookie »

Hi,

I still can't copy the Xorg config file at all. I can't quite figure it out.

But since then I have made some progress. I have managed to boot up both Damn Small Linux and Feathur Linux on the Libretto using their boot floppies and a USB stick and they seem to be working correctly. In both cases I used Xvesa for the display which seemed to be working just fine for these distros but which didn't work for me with Puppy at all.

Can anyone tell me the difference?

Even though I can get these other distros to work they are not ideal for me so I still want puppy to work if possible.

Thanks for any help.

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